If you are involved in investigations, you need to know about the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and the IPA. Even if you don’t carry out ‘normal’ surveillance, you are almost certainly carrying out activities that may count as surveillance, according to the inspectors.
We offer trainining that is suitable for Applicants, Gatekeepers, Authorisers and those who support them (such as Senior Responsible Officers and Coordinators / Monitoring Officers). Our training will ensure that you are both conversant with the law and fully up to date with current thinking and best practice.
If you’re not confident about your paperwork, we’re also able to review your policy and procedures. When you discover that the commssioner is coming, we can prepare you for your forthcoming inspection.
A selection of Surveillance, CHIS and Comms Data courses are set out below & there are RIPA related articles and FAQs are at the foot of the page.
RIPA – Applications and Authorisation – Price Code A
An in-depth one day course covering the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, the laws surrounding it and its application in investigations. The course is also available under Scottish Law and Jersey Law.
RIPA (Briefing) – RIPA and IPA Review and Update – Price Code A
This workshop style briefing will ensure that you are up to date with the changes to RIPA and the provisions of the IPA, and will guide you through a thorough review of current practice, including online investigations.
RIPA (Briefing) – High Level Briefing – Price Code A*
This briefing covers the essential elements of RIPA and can be delivered for a senior management team or any group of staff, that just needs to know what RIPA is. It is also suitable as a one-to-one briefing for a Head of Paid Service who needs a good general understanding of the Act but does not intend to be a regular Authorising Officer.
RIPA (Briefing) – Authorising Officers’ Workshop – Price Code B
This workshop will ensure that Authorising Officers are up to speed with the important RIPA considerations, ensuring that they have a good grounding in the basics and have had an opportunity to discuss the recent and anticipated changes.
RIPA (Briefing) – Using Communications Data – Price Code A*
Attend this briefing session to gain an understanding of how, when and why to obtain communications data using the RIPA procedures.
RIPA (Advanced) – Managing Human Intelligence Sources – Price Code B
This course includes all you’ll need to know in order to recruit, manage and task a Covert Human Intelligence Source.
RIPA (Advanced) – Authorising Officers and Inspections – Price Code B
Designed for Authorising Officers with a really good grounding in RIPA who now want to take it further, as a team. By the end of this event, you’ll be certain that you understand RIPA in depth and confident that you and your colleagues operate in a consistent fashion. You’ll also be prepared for your next inspection (or at least as prepared as you can be…).
Consultancy Service
We provide a full consultancy service including review and customisation of your RIPA policy. Please contact us for details or to discuss bespoke training.
FAQs
1. Must You Use RIPA?
2. Who Needs RIPA Training?
3. About the IPCO
1. Must You Use RIPA?
We are often met with the belief that surveillance is not lawful if an operation has not been authorised under RIPA. This is not so : there is nothing in RIPA that requires its use to authorise gathering of information using either surveillance or a covert human intelligence source. This should not be taken as advice to ignore RIPA ; nothing, in fact, could be further from the truth. Our advice is that, if at all possible, you should use RIPA to gain authorisation for covert activity. The problem is that it is not always possible…
So if you gather information without the use of RIPA or if a member of the public does so, without your foreknowledge, is the evidence admissible? The answer is (probably) ‘yes’ and the cases of R & Gareth Walters and R & Abdirizak Ali heard in the Crown Court at Newcastle are helpful.
The case arose from the actions of a group called ‘Dark Justice’ who impersonate under-age people in an attempt to obtain evidence of grooming. They are not law enforcement professionals but do inform the authorities of evidence they have obtained ; in many cases this has led the police to arrest and prosecute suspects for sex offences. The defendants sought to have their cases dismissed based on assertions that the evidence had been obtained without the degree of regulation, designed to protect the public, provided for by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000
The learned judge states, at paragraphs 35 and 36, “The fact that where a local or public authority proposes to use a CHIS (directing, requiring or inviting that person covertly to establish a relationship and use it to obtain information subsequently to be relayed to the public authority) that authority may secure that a relevant person within the meaning of Section 30 of the Act grants authorisation to the CHIS, thereby relieving the CHIS of any liability to which he might otherwise potentially be subject, cannot, in my opinion affect the situation where the authority does not seek the use of the CHIS in the first place. Repeated conduct by a CHIS, which is repeatedly productive of evidence then handed to the police, does not have the consequence that the police are to be said to have ‘used or conducted’ it. Any use in a situation such as that in the present cases is retrospective, not prospective: it is the latter to which the scheme of authorisation applies.
“Since, in any event, RIPA does not apply any sanction where a CHIS is used or operates outside the scope of an authorising organisation, still less provides that such a use or behaviour is unlawful, the consequence is that neither can it be unlawful where there is not such a situation as to call for authorisation in the first place.”
Although this judgement is in the case of a police service using evidence provided by private individuals, the principles apply equally to surveillance, as it falls under the same set of rules as the CHIS regime.
It is worth noting, however, this phrase from para 35, ‘relieving the CHIS of any liability to which he might otherwise potentially be subject’ ; if you carry out surveillance or use a CHIS without gaining authority to do so, you leave yourself open to civil action or, at worst, criminal proceedings.
We really cannot emphasise enough the need to ensure that ALL covert activity is authorised using either RIPA (if you can) on an analogous process but in circumstances where this is not possible, your evidence is not liable for exclusion simply on the basis that RIPA was not used.
2. Who Needs RIPA Training?
As a minimum, we strongly advise that the following are trained to a high level :
- Chief Executive / Head of Paid Services ;
- Deputy Chief Executive ;
- Head of Legal Services (or your legal team’s designated RIPA solicitor) ;
- Head of Internal Audit Services (or whoever is undertaking the role of RIPA Monitoring Officer / RIPA Coordinator) ;
- All designated Authorising Officers ;
- Any designated RIPA Gatekeepers ;
- Any member of staff involved in directed surveillance or activities that might amount to directed surveillance ;
- Any member of staff who uses informants or whose activities might amount to acting as an informant themselves ;
- Any member of staff involved in intelligence management.
The following should be trained to at least a basic level :
- Any officers who might occasionally wish to use covert techniques ;
- Any managers whose staff might (intentionally or otherwise) use techniques that fall under the ambit of RIPA. (This includes those who gather information from the public.)
NOTE THAT ‘covert techniques’, ‘surveillance’ and ‘acting as an informant’ may include the use of open source investigative techniques, including the accessing of social media.
What does ‘…trained to a high level’ mean?
This means that they have :
- a good knowledge of the requirements of RIPA law ;
- a good understanding of the RIPA authorisation and application process ;
- a good knowledge of the record-keeping and oversight process ;
- a good knowledge of investigation law surrounding intelligence management and data protection ;
- a working knowledge of investigation techniques ;
- demonstrated that they can assess an application in accordance with the law.
What does ‘…a basic level’ mean?
This means that they know :
- what might constitute surveillance or the use of a Covert Source ;
- what to do if an enquiry might cross the line ;
- the implications of unauthorised covert actions ;
- how words might (unintentionally) create covert agents ;
- how RIPA applies in the world of the web ;
- where to find the RIPA forms and how to complete them.
You can download the ‘Who Needs Training’ factsheet by clicking here. (Opens in new window)
3. IPCO
The Investigatory Powers Commissioner is up and running and there’s now a website in place. We’ve known for a while that Lord Justice Sir Adrian Fulford is the first commissioner but we are now finding out more about the personnel and clarification about the role.
In case you don’t know, IPCO takes over the responsibility for oversight of investigatory powers from the Interception of Communications Commissioner’s Office (IOCCO), the Office of Surveillance Commissioners (OSC) and the Intelligence Services Commissioner (ISComm) – and has already started to operate the inspection and audit functions of these bodies and the prior approval function of Surveillance.
Currently announced personnel are (in addition to Sir Adrian), Sir John Goldring – deputy IPC – , formerly the Intelligence Services Commissioner and Senior Presiding Judge for England & Wales. Sir John is also President of the Court of Appeal in the Cayman Islands and recently acted as Her Majesty’s Assistant Coroner for the Hillsborough Inquests. The Chief Executive (interim) is Graham Webber – a civil servant who has worked in a variety of Defence and Security roles. Most recently he was Private Secretary to the Armed Forces Minister. He has also worked in the British Embassy in Washington and in UK Trade & Investment. There is also a Technology Advisory Panel, chaired by statestician Bernard Silverman.
The site says, “The Investigatory Powers Commissioner, Lord Justice Fulford, and his Judicial Commissioners are responsible for overseeing the use of investigatory powers by public authorities which include law enforcement, the intelligence agencies, prisons, local authorities and other government agencies (e.g. regulators). In total over 600 public authorities and institutions have investigatory powers.” It goes on, “IPCO takes over the responsibility for oversight of investigatory powers from the Interception of Communications Commissioner’s Office (IOCCO), the Office of Surveillance Commissioners (OSC) …” You’ll note that there is no indication that oversight will be limited to these areas and we anticipate the role of the IPCO growing beyond that of the commissioners that it replaces.